The British heavy Mark V (MkV) tank was a masterpiece of war material and the most perfect in the rank of tanks used as combat vehicles during World War I. By its aggregate combat characteristics and component lay-out the Mk V met to the utmost the situation at the West Front.
Due to the introduction of side epicyclic Wilson gears into the transmission it turned out possible to eliminate the main shortcoming in design of the British tanks consisting in the imperfection of the steering system which called for agreed operations by four men of the crew. The Mk V was operated by one driver. For the first time in the history of tank-building the Mk V was fitted with a special tank engine designed by Harry Ricardo. Originally the Mark V was produced in two types, a gun-male (intended to destroy machine-guns) and "machine-gun female" (intended to comb trenches), and later in a combined type, designated the Composite, with one side (left or right) for cannon and the other side for machine-guns.
The production-line Mk V tanks were assembled in the factory "Metropolitan Carriage Wagon & Finance Co. Ltd." at Birmingham since December, 1917. Altogether, 400 combat vehicles were produced in the ratio of 200 "Males" to 200 Females, including Composites as well.
The Mk V tank received its baptism of fire on 4 July 1918 in the course of an attack on the village of Hammel (in France). It proved itself brilliantly in the battle at Amiens and in the last engagements of World War I. During the Civil War in Russia the Mk V tanks were supplied to the anti-Bolshevist forces. Most of them (57 units of "Composite"-type) were obtained by the armed forces of the South of Russia. The first tank troop had been built up and trained by the middle of May 1919. The first combat employment of Mk V tanks took place on the territory of the Soviet Ukraine in the Donets Basin, on 22 May 1919, when three Mk V tanks of the said troop, attached to the third general Drozdetski-division, took part in an attack on the village of Kharunsk in the vicinity of Yuzovka (renamed Donetsk). Later on Mark V tanks were employed by white guards in the course of offensives on Moscow and Tsaritsyn, near Petrograd, Arkhangelsk and in the Donets Basin, in the battles of the North Caucasus, on the Isthmus of Perekop and the Beachhead of Kakhovka, also when invading the North Taurida. The Mk V tanks captured by the Red Army were adopted by the armoured forces of the Soviet Republic and the USSR up to early in 1930 under the name of Ricardo or "B"-type ("Bolshoi", i.e. big) and constituted the backbone of the combat potential of their tank element. The Ricardo tanks invariably took part in military exercises, manoeuvres and displays of troops in the twenties. After signing the Certificate of unserviceability on 14 April 1930 some of the Ricardo tanks were set up as monuments in those cities and towns which had special services for the Revolution.